Many of the earliest travelers to Keweenaw Point stayed only until their dreams of quick riches disappeared. But some stayed on to settle the area and a few of the current townfolk and shop owners are descendants of those first rugged settlers. Early Copper Harbor became the administrative center for a group of remote copper mining locations spread through the forst of Keweenaw Point. Later, the Harbor rang to the sound of axes and crosscut saws as the growing region required vast quantities of pine logs to support mine shafts and provide housing for a growing influx of immigrants. Today the Harbor still has the feeling of its frontier origins.

As Michigan's northernmost community, Copper Harbor offers the visitor a truly unique opportunity to visit one of the area's earliest settlements that has continued to thrive for over 150 years.

Keweenaw Peninsula History In 1835 the Territory of Michigan and the State of Ohio engaged in a boundary dispute involving ownership of the Lake Erie port city of Toledo. By a compromise ending the bloodless, so- called, “Toledo War,” Ohio won the contested district while Michigan gained the western three-quarters of the Upper Peninsula, a vast wilderness it knew little about.

When Michigan became a state in 1837, 32-year-old Douglass Houghton was appointed as the first State Geologist. Houghton began a comprehensive geological exploration of the state to determine the extent of its mineral resources, visiting the Upper Peninsula in 1839 and 1840. This report to the Michigan legislature noted the probable extent of copper deposits in the Keweenaw Peninsula and stimulated new interest in Northern Michigan.

Publication of Houghton’s report of the mineral-rich Keweenaw Peninsula awakened the attention of eastern businessmen. The nation’s escalating need for brass (an alloy of copper and zinc) prompted further exploration of the area for exploitable copper resources. In 1842 the federal government removed the chief barrier to white settlement in this region. By the Treaty of La Pointe, signed on Madeline Island, Wisconsin Territory, the Chippewa Indians ceded the western half of Northern Michigan (roughly that area between Marquette, Michigan and Duluth, Minnesota), including the Keweenaw Peninsula, to the United States Government. The treaty opened the Keweenaw region to white settlement and marked the beginning of the rush for Michigan copper.